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Stumpedia Forum Talk
By Kimberly Bock | April 3, 2008
After reading SearchRanks “Stumpedia - Search For The People By The People” yesterday, I realized that we need a Stumpedia search engine progress update here as well.
February 27th I introduced the launch of the Stumpedia human powered Search Engine. No bots and no algorithms. The user submits the URLs, votes up / down determines a links positioning in the SERPs. The user also is responsible for manually adding each keyword to be ranked for on each URL. Acting as a human META tag of sorts.
As of March 3rd, there were only 5 forum members to assist with ideas, questions, comments and concerns. Of course, Stumpedia is still very much in beta at present which means that joining the forum to make suggestions, announce bugs, and ask questions is imperative to nudge Stumpedias growth.
Today there are still only 12 members to the forum including Luis Pereira (admin and CEO).
So I thought I’d bring some of the forum to your door. This way, you can get a better idea of what’s taking place behind the scenes to improve Stumpedias performance and usability.
February 22nd, Luis announced that Stumpedia was live.
Here’s a full copy / paste of a member of the forum and Luis’s response:
Member: “I am wording why I would work with you to build you search engin for free I am good at what I do and that is finding the best sites on the internet but for free. It is free on the net yes. But if you need our help to build it you should pay like many others are doing. Pay and you get the best.”
Luis: “Thanks for your post. Our goal is to provide an alternative to traditional search and create a social experience around search. Most users of social sites contribute and participate for the enjoyment and social aspects services. We presently do not provide or display any type of advertisements on our site, but when we do we will certainly compensate our users with a share of the advertising revenue. So don’t be afraid to participate in social media just because you don’t see the immediate ROI.”
Now that’s incentive ey?
Thread: keyword stuffing.
Of course, we have the option of voting up / down, so if there’s irrelevant keyword stuffing for a submission and you think it derserves a thumbs down then by all means give it.
Thread: user profiles
A member suggested that each users profile show scores based upon their received thumbs ups / downs. What do you think?
Luis said they are working on user profile features that will allow users to easily network with each other. And assured us that Stumpedia will be in beta for a while.
Thread: Stumpedia toolbar
Can we have a Stumpedia toolbar similar to Stumbleupon, Mixx and the like? He said that they are in the process of creating a social bookmarking feature that will allow us to save, tag and share submissions.
Thread: accidental keyword tagging
At first we could not edit or remove keywords tags that we used for our submissions. But on March 17th, Luis announced the addition of the feature that allows us to edit / delete and tags.
Thread: thumb up / down comparison
The discussion began March 25th and it is something that has me concerned.
As it stands, if a URL has 6 up votes and 4 down votes, it still holds weight in the SERPs as having 10 votes. So even if you are voting something down, it ultimately raises your rank in the SERPs.
Luis replied with a resolve that includes Googles PR as a possible determination in the positioning in the SERPs, along with ups / downs, and how many times the users have bookmarked the site. Then he suggested just displaying PR in the search results and allowing the user to decide if they want to use that as a voting factor.
He said they are working on a feature that ranks and scores activity and participation of users.
Then Dave (HuoMah) asked Luis to give a more descriptive breakdown because he wasn’t feelin’ it and thought it sounded problematic.
Luis: “Dave - The votes are presently aggregate. We initially did this with the intentions of trying to flag irrelevant submissions and potential spam from the start. The idea was to make users think twice before mapping a particular keyword to their URL submission since votes were aggregate and all it would take is one irrelevant user experience to affect their overall relevancy ranking. The new release will factor in votes based on query relevance and Thumbs Up vs Thumbs Down. We’ll make some of those changes in our next release. We’re trying to proceed with caution to prevent spam and gaming the system tactics. :-)”
Thread: profile images
There’s no max size stipulated upon uploading an image for our profiles. If it’s too large, it doesn’t even respond with a message making us aware of it. So you’re thinking you’re going to see a new avatar at any second, but it never shows. (if the one you chose is too large)
Luis says they are amending the image issues.How are the frontpage displayed avatars chosen?
The frontpage glam shots are of the newest 10 members to join.
The final thread: staying logged in
I hate logging in every time I want to use it, so is there something that could be done to keep us logged in even in long periods of absence? (within reason of course)
Can we change the login feature so that it remembers our information as opposed to making us manually add the info with each login?
To both issues he assures us that these changes will be made.
Oh yea..
I added one more request a couple of hours ago:
“I’d like a million dollars, a teddy bear as big as my living room, and um..er..uh..a little shack in the middle of a far removed corner of the wilderness where I can run naked in my backyard”
I still haven’t gotten a response. I don’t get it. He’s been responding so quickly lately.
Bummer. I had my fingers crossed.
Quickie stats:
- Links submitted - 2,660 (increase of 33 in the last hour)
- Active members - 423 (increase of 15 in the last hour)
- Search terms used - over 3,000
One last observation for link builders:
- Unlike Stumbleupons quickly realized mistake, Stumpedia is DOfollow.
Until later, have fun learning!
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Topics: Search |
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I like Stumpedia and the direction it’s taking, listening to suggestions from its users. I suspect that once they add a tool bar that it will really take off.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Yea I can’t wait to to get the toolbar! I’m gonna be lovin’ it!
April 4th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Hmmm… interesting concept. But damn… how on earth are they going to control the spammers and their bots? What if the spammers destroy it before there’s a critical mass of white hands on deck to administer?
April 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Oh… and thanks for the add to the Blogroll Kim. You rock
April 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Hi James you’re welcome..same here.
Maybe you can join the forum with those questions. Luis is prompt with replies. I am concerned about that as well. I wonder if there’s a way for the spammers to vote themselves up, not just submit. I’m sure there is.
Maybe I’ll go in there and ask this morning come to think of it.